According to the company’s announcement, HannaList will serve as a planned early access stage for listings within Howard Hanna’s brokerage network before listings are distributed to the wider market. The company said sellers may choose to enter the launch phase of their product or enter the market immediately.
Howard Hanna characterized the launch as a departure from “one-size-fits-all exposure.”
“As a company we’ve come up with a lot of creative strategies over the years, including our 100% money back guarantee on homes or our pre-purchase purchases, and we wanted to provide the same kind of flexibility to sellers as they want to bring their homes to market,” Hoby Hanna, president and CEO of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, said. HousingWire in a special interview. “Some brokers, not all brokers, want to be able to market their property within their brokerage’s ecosystem while preparing the environment for the public market and that’s allowed in our industry.”
Hanna said she does not consider HannaList a private listing network.
“Calling it PLN is probably too easy for what we’ve done,” Hanna said. “Ever since my grandparents founded this company, we’ve been a listing-focused company, where the seller lists their home and trusts the realtor with their great financial assets to strategize and market the house, but we also believe strongly in working with others in the marketplace. And we’re not some 800-pound gorilla that says we have a significant market share that wants to hide the listing to get more buyers.
The company said it is working with regional MLS partners – incl MLS Now and West Penn Multi-List – to ensure the listing complies with existing MLS policies and local enforcement National Association of Realtors‘ (NAR) Clear Partnership Policy.
If a seller uses HannaList as part of their marketing plan, the property will appear on HannaList during a clear transaction window defined by each MLS, unless the seller instructs their agent otherwise.
“We might open it for 24 hours in one market or 72 hours in another market depending on the MLS rules, and we’ll take it out to generate some interest and test the price,” Hanna said. “But some sellers might want it there for two weeks while they fix up their property and have the option to reflect that in their listing agreement.”
Howard Hanna said buyers, as well as other brokers and local agents, can register with HannaList to view participating inventory before it is widely marketed.
“Some look at marketing strategies like this with the intention of ‘let’s blow up the industry’,” Hanna said. “Our attitude is that the industry has been good to us and we want to be a part of it, so how do we do this within the framework?”
MLS executives, including MLS Now CEO Garry Marsoubian, said they were working with Howard Hanna on the plan.
“MLS Now is looking for new things that work within established MLS policy and support transparency for buyers,” Marsoubian said in a statement. “Howard Hanna’s approach shows how brokerages can bring new strategies while continuing to work within Clear Cooperation and the broader MLS framework.”
HannaList is not Howard Hanna’s first attempt at building an internal listserv network. In 2019, the company met with it RealScout introducing Find It First.
In an email, spokesman Howard Hanna said HannaList builds on that concept but “expands on that approach by combining Ocusell’s demand intelligence and working with MLS partners to give agents and sellers more control and choice over how listings are presented while continuing to work alongside MLS and social selling methods.”
